Timeout situation

[slow whistle]

Originally Posted by sseltser

If he had one timeout left, would you have granted him his "phantom" time-out?

IMO you shouldn't have, because you didn't grant one when he had zero.

Snaqs is right: the number of TOs should not matter. Be 100% sure every time.

If he had one time out left do you think he would be adamant that he didn't call one with 4 seconds left, clock running, opponent with the ball out of bounds and his team down 1? Sort of irrelevant.

What do you do then in a packed gym when you can't hear and you have a coach jumping up and down signalling and you aren't "100% sure" whether he is calling TO or signalling to his defense? B/C a lot of signals look a lot like a "T" signal - are you going to say "coach I couldn't discern with 100% certainty that you really wanted a timeout so I didn't grant you one?" Or do you grant it when you are "almost certain" especially given the game situation? It is nice to say be 100% sure, but in reality that is not possible.